A Pony by Any Other Name
by Crescent Pulsar
Summary: Ranma encounters an old priest while on a training trip with his father, and is told that he feels more like a kami than a human. The only clue as to why may have something to do with his name.
1. Preface and Prologue

**Preface**

Some might get the wrong idea when they see "kami" and how it's used. It shouldn't be confused with "god," in the sense that it's a creator-of-everything or just a powerful being. "Kami" can refer to various kinds of entities (usually spiritual in nature), both significant and insignificant.

Anyway, you'd be right to assume that this story was inspired by how commonly Ranma is associated with a horse in fan-fiction, even in terms that go beyond his name. That, and how often the subject of friendship (or the lack thereof) comes up.

Even though Ranma 1/2 and My Little Pony crossovers haven't become common at this time (and who knows if they ever will be), I didn't want to do something obvious or simple with them. Rather, I hope to do something that might remain unique even in the event that these two series meet more often in the future.

**Prologue**

A young man drew some attention from the other people who happened to be going about their own business on that particular urban street, in part due to the fact that most people didn't go about their business within city limits while hauling a large pack on their back. It probably didn't help that he was grumbling to himself a bit too loudly in obvious discontent.

"Stupid old man," Ranma muttered to himself. "'Let's use your Spring break to put in some training,' he says. Ha! Not even two days in and I'm already wasting my time trying to find him. I swear, if this is because of _another_ food-eating contest..."

As absorbed as he was, in imagining what he was going to do with his father upon finding him, he didn't notice someone perk up with interest as he walked past them. Nor did he feel their inquiring stare on his back as he put more distance between them. However, he wasn't so out of it that he couldn't tell when someone nearby was trying to get his attention.

"Excuse me!" A somewhat weak and raspy-sounding voice called out to him. "Young man?"

Ranma paused and looked behind him. The source of the voice, who was slowly making their way over to him, was an old man who was dressed as a Shinto priest. He was shorter than Ranma by a head, stooped a bit, and showed his age in his movements — yet not to the degree that would require him to use the broom that he held as a walking stick. He was bald, with a respectable-sized beard, and his eyebrows were so thick and bushy that they managed to conceal his squinting eyes from view. Behind the old priest, Ranma noticed the iconic red torii that explained said old priest's presence.

When the old priest thought that he was at a close yet comfortable distance, he ceased his approach and asked, "Could you tell me your name?"

Ranma looked the old priest up and down guardedly. "Who's asking?"

"Oh-ho-ho!" The old priest laughed good-naturedly. "I really must apologize. I found you so interesting that I forgot myself." He gave a respectable bow in greeting. "I'm Haruyama Fujita."

Ranma turned to face the old priest, pausing to consider whether he should ask a question before relinquishing his name. With the kind of problems that he'd had as of late, he could never be too careful about sharing his name with someone. In the end, though, he decided to do what was proper instead of doing something that would require an explanation that he was in no mood or mind to share.

"Saotome Ranma," he offered.

"Hmmmm?" The old priest hummed thoughtfully, as he tilted his head and looked at Ranma curiously. "In what way do you spell it?"

Not seeing how that could relate to any of his fears, Ranma told him that his surname was read as "quick maiden" and his given name as "war horse."

The old priest's brow wrinkled a bit as he frowned. "That's strange..." He shook his head, as if to clear it. "Sorry to bother you. I guess I was mis—"

At that precise moment, the occupant of a passing car — which was filled with a rowdy bunch of delinquents — tossed out a cup that was half-filled with a watered-down and somewhat tepid cola. Ranma made a large enough target because of his backpack, but the suddenness and proximity of the throw was what ultimately made it impossible for him to notice it before it was too late.

"—taken," the old priest finished, before he stared in shock at the redheaded girl that had replaced the young man. So great was his surprise that his eyes were wide enough to lift and peek out from underneath his prodigious eyebrows.

As the sound of laughter faded away with the car, Ranma merely sighed and adjusted the waistline of her pants before addressing the shoulder straps of her backpack, in a way demonstrative of having done so before many times.

"My," commented the old priest, as he tried to collect himself. "I certainly hadn't been expecting that. Come," he motioned for Ranma to follow him, "you may cleanse yourself at my home. Which is just as well, because what I'd like to tell you is probably best said in private, anyway."

Not seeing any harm in the invite, and being both curious and concerned about something that needed to be said in private, Ranma followed the old priest back to his residence on the shrine's grounds. It was a fairly small and modestly-equipped house from what could be seen, which hadn't been much because she had been more keen on getting herself cleaned up before she went from being wet to being sticky.

After her bath, and a change of clothes from his backpack, he met the old priest in the living room and sat across from him at the table. Outside, he could see his clothes — that the priest had washed for him while he had washed himself — drying on a line. He soon noticed some rice crackers and a cup of tea waiting for him, which he graciously accepted.

The old priest leaned forward and peered at him closely. "You are once more a man?"

"Yeah," Ranma replied, before taking a bite out of a rice cracker. "It's a curse I picked up. Cold water activates it, and hot water reverses it."

"I see..." Said the old priest thoughtfully, as he stroked his beard. "And do you transform into a horse, as well?"

Ranma gave him an odd look. "What kind of question is that?"

"Just bear with me," the old priest said in a placating tone. "I need to ask you a few questions concerning your name. Only then will I know what to tell you."

Ranma wasn't sure what to think of that, but he figured that there wouldn't be any harm in humoring his host. So he shrugged his shoulders and said, "I just turn into a girl, if that's what you're asking."

The old priest nodded his head. "Would you say that you're fast? Or have you become significantly faster recently?"

Ranma took a sip of his tea and took a moment to consider his answer. "Well... I've always been fast, compared to most. But it wasn't too long ago that I had to become a lot faster, and in a much shorter amount of time than any other part of my training had accomplished."

"And is there much conflict in your life?" The old priest inquired, in all seriousness. "Contention, strife, antagonism and the like?"

"Oh, definitely," Ranma answered immediately, who crossed his arms and looked disgruntled as he thought about all of the evidence to support his response. He'd been against the arranged marriage with Akane at the start, and even now they still antagonized each other. Then there was having to deal with their parents whenever they decided to impose themselves in matters regarding the status of their relationship. Of course, there were also the rivals of both a martial nature and those relating to love, and being in the middle of the girls that were contending to have him for themselves (even if only two of the four had any legitimate claim on him).

The old priest sighed and closed his eyes, not that Ranma could see the latter. "Then it's as I first thought."

Ranma was brought back to the present, and a weight settled into his stomach at the old priest's tone. It was the kind that said that he probably wasn't going to like what he was going to hear, and that it was almost too late to do anything about it, if not too late already.

"What is?" Ranma inquired, who was eager to learn what the old priest's business with him was all about.

The old priest took a sip of his tea before he spoke. "Well, I have a good sense when it comes to discerning the presence of a kami, and you caught my attention because," he paused to give Ranma a significant look, "you nearly _feel_ like one."

Ranma stared at the old priest for a time. "You gotta be kidding me."

"It could just be a coincidence," the old priest admitted. "Still, you feel more like a kami to me than you do a human, and I don't know what else could be used to explain your being in such a state. In my experience, either you are or aren't one of the two, not somewhere in between."

Ranma mulled over what he'd been told as he ate a rice cracker. It wasn't until he gulped the last of it down that he said, "Okay, let's assume it's possible: can you explain _how_ this happened?"

"To begin with," the old priest began, who assumed the bearing of a teacher who was conveying something important to their student, "one must understand that language has power. For kami, particularly in the case of those who personify or govern an aspect of nature, it's common for their name to relate to or literally reflect what it is that's in their nature to do."

"Take the kami of this shrine, for instance," he continued. "Inari-sama's primary governance concerns agriculture and the harvest, and the name suggests such a connection. Even if the name were to come after the fact, the important thing to remember is that the power of language lies in conveyance: if a person can define the name, can it not work the other way, where the name defines the person?"

Ranma frowned a bit as he digested the old priest's reasoning. "I think I see what you're trying to say: that people can change themselves so they can exemplify the definition of a role." His frown deepened a bit. "But that can't apply to me because I never wanted to be a girl." To himself he added, "Among other things."

"Not necessarily," the old priest disagreed. "Many people never know who or what they are becoming; or, if they do, when exactly they become it. Even if you didn't consciously choose the path you've taken, a part of yourself may have influenced you just enough to make you go in that direction. Reflect for a moment, and see whether or not that may be the case."

Ranma regarded the old priest (who was smiling at him encouragingly) with a doubtful expression on his face, but ultimately decided to follow his advice. He stared down into his cup, where he saw his agitated visage reflected on the surface of his tea. He turned his eyes away from the sight, because it reminded him that he didn't really want to put into question a part of what he was making himself think about.

Had he ever wanted to be a girl? Certainly he had wondered what it would be like to be someone else, during the times when he couldn't help feeling left out. Because his father had been raising him to become a man, and the heir of his school of martial arts, he very rarely had the opportunity to socialize with his schoolmates outside of school, where there had been a lot more time for having fun, as well as ways of having it. And with how frequently his father had made them move around, he'd eventually given up even trying to socialize and make friends, despite having a yearning to do the exact opposite. Perhaps if he hadn't been a boy that could be shaped into a man, or a gender that made a proper and traditional heir, things might have been different, more like he'd desired. But a girl...?

There was no question that he had wanted to be fast. He had endured his father's excesses in regard to food — to his dismay — for many, many years. He'd hated it so much that he had sworn to never forget any such offenses. Had he been faster than his father, he could have enjoyed all sorts of snacks, and come away from dinner feeling truly satiated instead of merely having "enough." And then there was the distinct possibility that he could have given the beatings he felt his father deserved, had he been fast enough to get through his defenses (not to mention being able to escape harm himself).

Who in their right mind would want two unwanted fiancées, a girl who wanted to drag him back to a village that hadn't caught up with modern times in order to practice a form of eugenics, another girl who'd likely try to drug him and — as a likely consequence — rape him, parents who didn't know how to quit getting into personal affairs not their own, three rivals who'd sooner kill him for the girl they each "loved" (girls, in one case) instead of wooing said girl(s), a mother that was ready and willing to cut off his head if deemed unmanly, and so on and so forth? Besides, it wasn't like he could control how others thought and behaved.

He highly doubted that any of those things had been due to any unconscious nudging on his part, though he figured that the old priest probably wasn't looking at it in the literal way that he was, what with the whole, "you feel more like a kami," thing. While he wasn't any kind of expert on things mystic and spiritual, he was pretty sure that he wasn't unconsciously manipulating his fate in ways both grand and unseen. Granted, the chance of having "otome" in one's name, encountering a real body-transforming curse, and landing in the one spring (out of many) that could be connected to his name was very low. But if something fantastical were really at work, he should have fallen into the spring of drowned horse, too, right? And the likelihood of it being more than a coincidence was greatly reduced because there was nothing else out of place or outstanding, even though his problems (especially as a whole) were likely to be very uncommon.

Still, it was the thought that counted, so he could appreciate the old priest's concern. If said concern turned out to be a real problem, he might just be able to avoid becoming a horse thanks to being forewarned. It was bad enough to become a girl with a splash of cold water, but to lose one's humanity, too? Hopefully, though, he wouldn't have to worry about such a thing: he had enough on his plate as it was.

"I'm not seeing it," he said with a shake of his head, as he returned his attention to the old priest. "Though I appreciate having it brought to my attention. Knowing my luck, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if you happened to be right about this."

The old priest waved the comment aside, in a show of modesty. "This old man's interest had simply been piqued, is all. Though I do hope that nothing regrettable happens, in any case."

"Well," said the old priest a few seconds later, before he got to his feet and pushed his back in with an audible pop, "since you have to wait a bit longer for your clothes to dry, would you mind accompanying me for lunch?" In a more light-hearted tone, he added, "It will be my treat, though don't expect anything fancy."

Ranma smiled gratefully. "Sure."

* * *

Torii: a type of doorless, free-standing gate usually found at the entrances of Shinto shrines, or somewhere in the vicinity of one.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

As the weeks passed by, Ranma's encounter with the old priest slipped away from his mind. Which wasn't much of a surprise, considering some of the things that he had to deal with on an almost-daily basis.

To begin with, the girls had become less civil with each other ever since the day that he and a certain Tendo had been dressed in raiments most commonly worn for a Western-styled wedding. In particular, Akane had become the prime target of assassination attempts, what with having come the closest to getting what the other girls had wanted, regarding matters of the law and of the heart.

One would think that he would have drawn a line by now, and make it clear that he wouldn't be interested in anyone who would go so far as to attempt murder, but he didn't. He'd like to think that it was due to not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings, but he knew that it was a weak excuse even though it was partly true. And while a guy could certainly be proud to have the attention of multiple good-looking girls, they were a lot more trouble than that was worth.

Even now, as he meditated in the dojo, he couldn't really explain his behavior. He was pretty sure that he didn't want to get married any time soon, yet he did nothing to dissuade anyone from trying to marry him on their own terms. He didn't want to be Shampoo's insemination machine, Ukyo's business partner (or waitress), and he certainly didn't want to be Kodachi's... junkie? For that matter, he didn't want to be Akane's practice dummy, either. But, despite favoring Akane more than the others, he still made it his modus operandi to say and do things that couldn't possibly appeal to her.

Heck, back when Shampoo had appeared to lose interest in him (because of the reversal jewel), he'd gone out of his way to re-establish her attentions instead of being relieved and doing nothing about it. It didn't make any sense to him, despite the fact that he'd done it himself. Why in the world had he done something that he knew would be counterproductive?

Regardless of what he did, however, it didn't change the fact that he couldn't change the past. And now that things had developed as far as they had, he couldn't think of any way to resolve everything honorably without committing seppuku and removing himself from the equation, since he was the keystone at the heart of all of the designs imposed upon his person. Even his mother must have realized the kind of position he was in by now; frankly, he was surprised that she hadn't already come up to him and suggested doing exactly what he feared he would have to do in order to sort everything out.

He spent a few more fruitless moments thinking about it before he heard a knock at the door. Thankful for the distraction, he got to his feet and turned to face his visitor, who had already opened the door and crossed the threshold by the time he could see them.

"Oh, hey, Kasumi," he casually greeted the older girl.

As was common for most occasions, she was wearing a modest house dress. Usually she would have her hair tied back in a pony tail, with its length resting over a shoulder, but these days she had taken to wearing those horseshoe-shaped headbands to hold her hair back instead. It had the effect of making her seem a bit younger, not to mention — much to his embarrassment — a little cuter, as well.

Kasumi responded with an easy smile. "Your mother asked me to tell you that you should join everyone in the family room." A pensive looked crossed her face. "I think it's something serious."

"Ah..." Ranma voiced, as he wondered what it could be about, and fearing that it wouldn't be anything good (for him).

He followed Kasumi to their mutual destination, where the Tendo and Saotome families were gathered around the table that was routinely used when they ate their meals (among other things). While Kasumi found her place between her father and Nabiki, he found his between Akane and his own father. The Tendo patriarch sat across from him while his parents shared a side to his right. Kasumi and Nabiki sat on the side to the left of him, which left the fourth side of the table to Akane and himself.

He didn't much like the look of things. For one, Soun looked a bit agitated as he smoked a cigarette, which meant that whatever the gathering was for was placing a fair amount of stress on him. His father looked disgruntled, as if he'd rather argue or be somewhere else, but that wasn't all that peculiar. By contrast, his mother was calm and collected, stoic. She had acknowledged his arrival with a simple glance and a nod of her head. What really had him worried was Akane. She had yet to look at him, and the expression on her face was something between a scowl and a look of determination.

"Now that everyone's here," Soun began, after taking a drag from his cigarette and exhaling a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling, "we can begin, since what we have to say will affect all of you."

"Let me guess," Nabiki spoke up in a sarcastic tone, as she watched her father take yet another drag from his cigarette, "you're smoking two packs a day now, and you wanted to tell us how much that will raise our risk of getting lung cancer due to the increased amount of second-hand smoke that you'll be exposing us to."

That sent her father into an eye-watering coughing fit, so Nodoka cleared her throat and picked up where he'd left off, so as to prevent the discussion from getting derailed. "No, dear. This concerns your engagement to my son."

Nabiki blinked her eyes at that. "'My?'"

"Your sisters, as well," Nodoka clarified.

"Oh, my," Kasumi voiced, as she raised a hand to her cheek in concern. "You're not saying that we'll have to... _share_, are you?"

Had anyone at the table been imbibing a beverage at the time, they probably would have spit it out. Instead, they settled on giving Kasumi a mix of odd and speculative looks. The only exception was Nodoka, who looked more disappointed than anything else.

"No," the Saotome matriarch replied with a sigh, "and that's the problem." Seeing the looks that she got from her son and the two elder Tendo daughters, she went on to elaborate. "You see, no one wants to share Ranma, and that hasn't exactly created a healthy environment to start a family in." She turned her attention to her son, with a bit of pride shining in her eyes. "I'm sure that's why my manly son has been reluctant to choose one and marry them."

While his mother's assumption wasn't true, Ranma decided to go with it as he looked up and modestly said, "Oh, was _that_ what I was doing?"

That earned him a menacing glare from Akane, while the look that he received from Nabiki said, "smooth."

Soun would have coughed into his fist to interject himself into the conversation, but since he had coughed enough he opted to just speak up instead. "Be that as it may, we — and by that I mean the heads of each family involved — have decided that we don't want anyone killed over this matter, much less a blood feud."

His complicity in the matter was due to his concern for his youngest daughter's life, though nobody who knew or guessed called him on it. Ranma figured that said complicity was the reason for his father's foul mood. His father wanted him to marry a Tendo, after all, but he couldn't contradict his mother in such a way as to make her think that he wasn't being manly enough, since the consequence of doing so would also fall upon his own head. That was probably why he had restricted himself to a bit of grumbling when his mother had made her assumption about his indecisiveness.

"We've already gotten written agreements from most of the girls who have been entitled to — or have been actively pursuing — my son," Nodoka added, "stating that they will consider this matter settled with a contest, and that none shall seek any hostile action toward the winner or their family."

"Hold on," Ranma interrupted, who was clearly vexed by what he had just learned. "Are you saying that I'm going to be some kinda prize?"

"More like a booby prize," Nabiki quipped, which only served to aggravate Ranma all the more. Went unseen was Kasumi's reaction, who had perked up upon hearing what Nabiki had said, as if to say, "I like booby prizes!"

Nodoka ignored Nabiki's less than serious comment and leveled a piercing stare upon her son. "It's the only solution that I could think of to settle this dispute peaceably. While I'm filled with pride to have a son that's so manly as to attract so many pretty and... interesting girls, who are willing to take drastic measures to be your one-and-only, frankly I was beginning to wish that your cursed form had been the one that you had been born with at one point."

Seeing that her son had been suitably cowed, her gaze then fell upon the two girls that sat across from her. "Now, the only ones who haven't signed the agreement are you two, Nabiki-chan, Kasumi-chan."

The youngest of the two had a put upon expression on her face. "Pardon me, obasan, but do I _have to_ get involved?" Seeing an opportunity to mock Ranma, she closed her eyes, leaned back, and raised her hand until the back of it was placed against her forehead in a melodramatic fashion. "You see, I'm afraid that your son is simply _too_ manly for my tastes."

While Ranma rolled his eyes at the display, Akane abandoned her previous expression to tease him with a humored look.

"That's truly a shame," Nodoka replied, having not caught the "hidden" message behind Nabiki's words. "However, it was decided that it wouldn't be fair to leave out anyone entitled to Ranma's hand, in order to honor the pledge between your father and my husband to the letter. Partly, it's because we have to include the only girl whose stake in this isn't recognized by our ways, in order to hold everyone involved to the agreement."

"Which is the _one_ good thing about this," Genma griped to himself mentally, who didn't think that Akane had what it would take to win. He had concluded that Kasumi's chance of succeeding would be much higher.

"Only one?" Ranma asked, who looked confused. "Shouldn't that be two?"

"Kodachi," Akane muttered, the scowl returning to her face.

Nodoka closed her eyes for a moment and released a somewhat undignified sigh upon hearing the name, before addressing her son's question. "Yes... As it turned out, Kuno-san managed to procure a signed and sealed agreement from your father, to recognize her as one of your fiancées. Apparently he had been inebriated at the time, but the fact remains. And..." She paused, and anyone looking closely could see her brow tick. "Money had been exchanged in the deal." Her brow ticked some more. "Money that your father has already spent."

Ranma gaped at her, hoping that she was kidding, until he remembered exactly what kind of person his father was. So he rounded upon the older man, ready to give him the punishment he so "richly" deserved, but was met instead with a panda playing with a beach ball.

"Don't think you're going to get out of it that easily!" He yelled angrily, as his battle aura blazed around him. "What in the world were you thinking!?"

Genma sweated at the sight and had the nerve to raise a sign that said, "It seemed like a good idea at the time!"

Ranma leapt at his father and proceeded to give him the beating of a lifetime. Soun, with tears streaming down his face, couldn't bear to watch, knowing that it would be a great folly to intervene. He could still hear what was happening, however, and anything sounding even remotely painful made him wince in sympathy.

Nodoka, whose patience and tolerance had declined during the time that she had lived alone, regarding her husband's antics, simply ignored what was happening as she calmly sipped at her tea. And while she could forgive her son for most of the invectives used against her husband, quite a few of them surprised her, and she made a mental note to speak to her son later, about using such colorful language in the future.

Nabiki looked on with mild amusement, while Akane couldn't help a slight, smug smile of satisfaction. Kasumi frowned, though those who noticed would have been mostly wrong had they assumed her expression to mean disapproval for what Ranma was doing. While disapproval of Ranma's behavior was certainly a part of that frown, by far the largest portion of her frown was reserved for the one on the receiving end of the beating, not the one giving it. Like Nabiki, there were some cards that she played close to her chest; especially in regard to Ranma, as doing otherwise would have — in all likelihood — made their lives much more complicated.

When Ranma finished his business with his father and returned to his place at the table, Nodoka picked up where she had left off, as if there hadn't been an interruption of any kind. "Now," she said, as she refocused her attention on Nabiki and Kasumi, "while you're obligated to participate, if you really aren't interested in marrying my son then it will be acceptable to forfeit any given challenge."

"I guess I can live with that," Nabiki relented.

Nodoka smiled pleasantly. "Good. As soon as you two sign the agreement before the head of each family, the contest will be held in a week. If you decide to take the contest seriously, you should spend that time preparing for both the martial _and_ marital arts that you will be tested in."

Upon hearing that, Akane clenched her hands into fists and stared ahead with determination, as she made plans for the things that she wanted to work on. She wasn't under any illusion regarding the challenges that awaited her, but she was — first and foremost — an optimist when it came to her own abilities, and she was sure that a week was more than enough time to become good at things that she'd failed to make any significant progress in for many, many years.

Nabiki, who could care less about the whole thing, lazily glanced to the side, and out of the corner of her eye something about Kasumi's visage caught her attention. When she looked at her directly, she saw that her older sister had an unreadable expression on her face, aside from the fact that her eyes were looking into a distance that didn't exist within the confines of the room. It was unexpected and baffling, making her wonder if she were actually considering the contest seriously.

Ranma stared down into his lap, unaware that his mother was observing him. He had mixed feelings about the whole thing. While it sucked that he would essentially be treated as an object, with his choice being taken away from him, no one would have to die, and there wouldn't (hopefully) be any blood feuds when all was said and done. That was a good thing, right? That's what he wanted... right?

He began to dread the day of the contest.

* * *

Obasan: an aunt or middle-aged woman.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

When the day of the contest arrived, Ranma wanted to be anywhere but in the dojo, where it would take place. Unfortunately, not only was he obligated to make an appearance, but he would have to sit through it all and watch it. The only good thing about the whole affair was that he wouldn't be expected to judge; after all, a part of the reason for why the contest was being held in the first place was due to his indecisiveness.

Instead, there would be one judge from each party who had a stake in the contest, plus one that could be trusted to be impartial that was not. They would each score on a scale of one to ten, and the girl with the highest combined score would be declared the winner of each challenge. The girl who won the most challenges would — of course — win the contest.

As he yawned, he cursed the fact that he'd had to get up so early in the morning to help set everything up. Aside from accommodating the judges and a small audience with comfortable places to sit, various things had to be brought into the house, or set outside of the dojo, for the various challenges that the girls would compete in over the course of the day. All of the kitchenware and food supplies that the six girls would eventually put to use during the contest undoubtedly took up the most space, with the former requiring a portable pavilion since they would take up a lot of room in the dojo and moving all of it in and out of the place multiple times would be much more trouble than using them outside.

If there was anything positive for him to say about the whole thing, it was how everyone involved in its creation had been pretty thorough when it came to arranging both the martial and the marital portions of the contest. Since he'd helped with the moving and setting up of the various things that would be used, he had a decent idea of what the girls would be tested in, and how. As far as he could tell, their aim seemed to be rather specific, to avoid having someone win multiple challenges because of the same asset.

On the martial end of things, he wasn't sure who would do the best, if he was right about what to expect. Shampoo may be good all-around, but like the other girls she only had a few areas where she truly outshone the others. He wasn't nearly as uncertain about the marital side of it, though that depended on whether Kasumi decided to put forth an effort or not. But he reasoned that he was probably giving her too much credit, since he didn't really know how to compare her to the others in a number of things. It just _felt_ right to think more highly of her because she was a lot more pleasant to be around.

He was suddenly brought out of his musings when something lightly brushed against his lower back, which made him jump into the air and yelp even as a chill washed up and down his spine.

Cologne cackled with amusement as she withdrew her cane. "Not all that alert in the morning, are we? Problem solved, I hope."

Ranma looked over his shoulder and glared at her. "Old ghoul..."

"Now, now," Cologne tried to mollify the vexed teen, "it's your own fault for not paying attention."

"I shouldn't have to," Ranma grumbled under his breath.

"Anyway," Cologne went on, "we've finished delivering all of the things that will be used for the marital challenges. I came to check on your progress with everything else, but if you've got time to stand around and daydream then I'm assuming that you've all finished."

With a sigh, Ranma turned around to face Cologne, so he could speak to her properly. "Yeah. We finished not too long ago." He looked in the direction of the house. "The old man wanted to squeeze in a game of Go with ojisan before the contest started, and I," he shrugged his shoulders, "just kinda ended up sticking around here."

Cologne regarded him with a penetrating stare. "The contest has been weighing on your mind, has it?"

Ranma waved her observation aside as he turned away from her and acted nonchalant. "Feh. Why should I be bothered by it when it's going to solve most of my problems?"

"Is that so?" Cologne casually replied, before she mounted her cane. "Well, then you'll likely get exactly what you want out of this... Ran_ma_."

Ranma had a puzzled look on his face as he watched her hop away and out of the dojo, finding her parting words odd... and a bit disturbing. However, since he couldn't make heads or tails of it, he decided to forget about it so he could think of something to do, in order to pass the time until the contest got underway.

Before he could think of anything, however, his attention was redirected toward the door, through which several familiar people began to enter. Leading the group was Shampoo, whose smug expression was at odds with the cross look on Ukyo's face, who appeared ready to reach for the peel that she usually — though not currently — carried on her back. Behind Ukyo was Konatsu, who appeared to be a bit worried about his employer's current mood, since fighting had been expressly forbidden. Walking beside Ukyo was her father, Yasuo, who didn't seem bothered at all by whatever had been exchanged between his daughter and Shampoo. He was as burly as Ranma remembered him, a little grey around the temple and beard, and wore the same kind of outfit that his daughter usual did (and currently was).

Ranma hadn't really had the opportunity to speak much with the elder Kuonji, back when everyone had gathered to be assigned tasks earlier that morning, but he seemed to be good-humored even though he came off as a bit gruff. He'd even slapped Ranma on the back and had a good chuckle, when he'd learned about how he'd mistaken his daughter for a boy (much to said daughter's embarrassment). He hadn't reserved the same easygoing attitude toward his father, however.

"That father of yours, though," Ukyo's father had whispered to him from behind his hand, after he had glanced around to see if anyone else had been paying them any attention. "Even if my daughter wants to honor the agreement, it won't be over between your father and I, regardless of whether my daughter wins the contest or not."

Ranma was perfectly fine with that, and had expressed exactly that sentiment to the man. Too many times did he remember his father casting the entire blame his way, or finding some way to include him in his wrongdoing so he'd be dragged down with him. Simply put: if there was anyone who deserved to be harassed or outright punished, it was his old man.

Fortunately, when Ukyo caught sight of him, her mood did a one-eighty. Shampoo also perked up upon seeing him, but — thankfully — she didn't try to get physical with him. He'd almost forgotten one other benefit to having the contest: getting too familiar with him was bound to cause a lot of unnecessary antagonism before the girls could actually prove themselves and earn the right to said familiarity, so it had also been expressly forbidden. He suspected that it had been done for Akane's sake, but he figured that it would be better for everyone involved the smoother that things went in general (especially for such a major event).

Yasuo grinned and spoke to him first. "Ranma, m'boy! Are you getting excited?"

Ranma glanced at Shampoo and Ukyo, who were anticipating his answer, and he found himself put on the spot. "Er..." He looked askance, away from the two girls, as he continued to hem and haw. "Well..."

"Of course he is!" Ukyo happily asserted. "After today he'll finally marry the girl he was meant to be with." Went unsaid, but was understood loud and clear, was that she had been referring to herself as being the lucky girl.

"Which would be me," Shampoo slyly stated, who wasn't about to allow Ukyo to get away with such a suggestion. "Whether it be the martial or marital arts, I will be the best." She smirked at her rival. "How do you even expect to win the marital challenges when you've lived as a boy for so long?"

Ukyo growled at her. "Why, you..."

Ranma watched — unsurprised — as they began a heated duel of words. Konatsu stood by helplessly as he tried and failed to interject himself verbally, who intended to stop them both by reasoning with Ukyo. Noticing that said person's father had walked over to stand beside him, he switched his attention over to him instead.

"In a way, I envy you," the older man quietly said, as he laid one of his large, meaty hands upon Ranma's shoulder. "But I wouldn't want to be you."

"Gee, thanks," Ranma mumbled humorlessly.

A moment later he looked beyond Ukyo, Shampoo and Konatsu, when he noticed someone entering the dojo. Even though he hadn't seen them for a while, he recognized them right away. How could he not, considering how much he respected them for the times that they had been there to help him, and for being a decent person overall.

"Doc?" He addressed said person, his surprise clear in his voice.

That seemed to get Shampoo's and Ukyo's attention, who stopped what they had been doing so they could see who Ranma had been referring to. Only one of the two had more than a passing knowledge of Ono Tofu, and was thus able to recognize him.

"You're that doctor I used to work for," Shampoo recalled aloud.

Tofu raised his hand in greeting, appearing a bit sheepish and apologetic as he did so. "It's been a while, hasn't it? I got a bit absorbed trying to solve..." He paused, and decided against saying anything too specific concerning his feelings for Kasumi, since he wasn't very familiar with some of the present company. "...A certain problem that's been bothering me for a while."

Ranma simply nodded his head in understanding. "No problem."

Before it occurred to him to introduce the doctor to the Kuonji family (and Konatsu, by extension), Yosuo grinned and said, "Ono-sensei! It's nice to see you again."

Tofu smiled in reply. "Likewise, Kuonji-san."

"Wait," Ranma spoke up, his brow furrowed as his gaze fell upon one man, then the other, before settling on the doctor. "You two know each other?"

"Of course," Ukyo's father acknowledged, as he folded his arms across his chest. "Otherwise I wouldn't have agreed with the others to allow him to be the nonpartisan judge in our contest."

"That's _you_?" Ranma couldn't help asking Tofu, expressing both his incredulity and — consequently — his surprise. Shampoo, having worked with the doctor long enough in the past to understand her beloved's reaction, stared at her former employer with questioning eyes.

Ukyo turned her inquisitive gaze toward Ranma. "Why? Is there a problem?"

With some evident embarrassment, Tofu turned his head away and coughed into his fist. "Not anymore." He looked askance at Ranma, and gave him a meaningful stare. "_That_ problem has been... sorted out."

Ranma blinked his eyes at that, having been unprepared to learn that such a familiar characteristic of the doctor was now no more. Then, realizing how awkward the ensuing silence had become, he tried to think of something so he could change the subject. Fortunately for him, that became unnecessary because everyone's attention was soon diverted to the sound of someone approaching the entrance to the dojo.

"...Still don't understand why you won't allow me to act as judge," a familiar male voice said, who sounded equal parts disappointed and insulted. "You know I support a union — as twisted as it may be — between yourself and Saotome."

A second later, Tatewaki and Kodachi stepped into the dojo proper. The former wore his usual outfit when he wasn't in a classroom, consisting of a blue uwagi and black hakama, while the latter wore an elaborate and expensive-looking kimono that had a black and red theme to it, with images of black roses outlined in gold. Though what really got everyone's attention was the large alligator that was on the other end of Kodachi's leash.

"Because, dear brother, you're not nearly as dependable," Kodachi replied, before making a gesture that instructed her pet to attack him. "I can't trust that you'll be able to resist scoring that Tendo girl favorably. On the other hand, I have complete faith that my Midori Kame-san shall carry out my every desire."

Caught by surprise, Tatewaki soon found himself struggling to extricate the upper half of his body from Midori Kame-san's jaws, who had lifted him from the floor and had begun to shake him around.

"Unmaw me, beast!" He cried out indignantly.

Most watched this scene with dubious expressions on their faces, as well as with some surprise. The surprise was due to what had been suggested by Kodachi, in regard to her pet alligator.

"_That_," Ukyo said, as she pointed at Midori Kame-san, "will be a judge?"

Whether she hadn't heard the question, or had ignored it, Kodachi's undivided attention was upon Ranma the second her eyes fell upon him. She smiled pleasantly as she approached him.

"Ah, my sweet, darling Ranma," she crooned, before she was standing before him and looking imploringly into his eyes. "You'll wish me luck in this endeavor, won't you?"

Shampoo sidled up alongside Kodachi and glared at her. "Why would my love want _you_ to win when he already has _me_?"

Before Kodachi could retort, Ukyo cut in between them and Ranma, giving him a look of expectation. "You know who to root for. Right, Ran-chan?"

Ranma suddenly found all three girls staring at him intensely, which caused him to lean back a bit and sweat at the brow. He looked askance, to seek help from either Tofu or Yasuo, but their heads were "conveniently" turned away from what was going on. Finding himself on his own, he began to sweat even more.

As he became more desperate to escape his predicament, his eyes began to dart around, searching for some kind of distraction or diversion. To give himself some more time, he slowly said, "Well..."

Then he saw it. Near the entrance now stood a statue of a mantis, and he didn't need to see the cutting potential of its forelegs to know that the principal of his school was hiding inside of it, no doubt waiting to cause his own brand of trouble. He was the very man that his mother had told him had been rather difficult to deal with, in regard to his situation with the multiple engagements; which was why she had — at one point — wished that he had been born a girl. If not for Kodachi "convincing" her father to see things her way, because he had been against her marrying him, the contest that they were about to have wouldn't have been possible.

He was quick to capitalize on the elder Kuno's presence, so he could get away from the girls with a hasty, "I'll get back to you on that."

He grabbed the statue and carried it out of the dojo without looking back. Since he didn't want to kick it through the roof of the breezeway that connected the dojo and the house, he proceeded into the yard with it. By then the man inside of the statue began to make his move, but he saw it coming and had no problem protecting his pigtail as he gave the stone and flesh object the boot.

"Owie!" Cried said object, as it was sent soaring into the distance.

After brushing imaginary filth from his hands, Ranma released a heavy sigh of relief. Not only had he gotten rid of a nuisance, who could have done something stupid that might have interfered with the contest, but he had managed to escape a lose-lose situation with the girls back in the dojo.

Idly, he began to wonder how Akane was doing. He hadn't seen much of her over the past week, considering how much time she had spent preparing herself for the contest. That, and there was also the fact that she was prone to hitting him as a reflex (even when she couldn't remember him), and one of the stipulations of the agreement — that all of the girls had signed — was that _none_ were to attack anyone involved for any reason, lest they wished to disqualify themselves.

Still, it was kind of odd to see her so focused on winning the contest. Before the plot to have them married, she would have denied having any interest in him whatsoever. Of course, now that everything rested on the result of the contest, he could understand why she would abandon pretense and get down to business. Though he also suspected that her pride weighed in on the matter, too, since he doubted that she would want to lose to the other girls as a martial artist; as a woman or a wife, however, he could only guess as to how the tomboy felt about it.

The sound of conversation drew his attention toward the house, where he noticed everyone who had yet to enter the dojo — who were supposed to be there for the contest — coming out to do just that. Akane spared him a glance before she looked away in embarrassment, though it wasn't long before she was staring ahead of herself determinedly once again.

He felt resigned to his fate as he watched the procession of people making its way toward the dojo. "I guess it's time for the contest to start..."

* * *

Ojisan: an uncle or middle-aged man.

Uwagi: a kimono-like jacket, often worn as a part of a martial arts uniform.

Hakama: traditional lower dress that's pleated and tends to reach the ankles, either divided (like trousers) or not, but tends to look like a skirt either way.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

The contest had begun with little preamble, by stating what it was about, how things would proceed, and what would be expected of everyone once it was over and a winner had been determined. After that, the judges and those of the audience took their respective places on opposing sides of the dojo.

On the judges' side sat Tofu, Yasuo, Soun, Nodoka, Cologne and Midori Kame-san, in that order. Cologne had been placed between Midori Kame-san and the other judges in the unlikely event that the alligator tried to make a snack out of any one of them. In front of each of them was a notepad for them to keep score on, as well as a small stack of cue cards with the numbers zero through ten written on them. The audience, which included the contestants (when they weren't competing), consisted of Genma, Ranma, Konatsu, Mousse (as a duck in a cage), Ryoga (as a pig), Tatewaki and Happosai.

The grandmaster of the Anything Goes school of martial arts had been a late and unexpected addition, but as much as this displeased a number of those present he had promised to not interfere or cause any problems. And, so far, he'd done nothing but sit and smoke from his pipe.

"Who'd want to miss a bunch of pretty girls giving it their all in such a variety of ways?" Happosai had replied, when Ranma had asked him his reason for being there. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime event, m'boy, so you should enjoy it while you can."

Ranma had snorted derisively in response. However, in the back of his mind, he had noticed something off about the last thing that Happosai had said. Instead of saying, "while _it_ lasts," he'd said, "while _you_ can." The meaning had been unmistakeable, but its exact portents hadn't been so clear. Since he hadn't been able to figure it out, he had decided to put it out of his mind.

The contest began with breakfast, with each girl given the choice of making one dish of their choosing to the best of their ability, with the added requirement of making enough so that each person could eat a small portion of it. This required them to go outside, to the pavilion, and the judges followed them to oversee their efforts and make sure that there wouldn't be any cheating or sabotage.

The first challenge was very revealing, regarding what to expect from the judges. Four of the six judges were fair-minded and critical, with Cologne (somewhat surprisingly) being perhaps a bit _too_ critical of Shampoo. Soun, on the other hand, had behaved like an immature child and had given his daughters the highest possible score while reserving the lowest for the others. Tofu, as he had claimed earlier (in not so many words), had been perfectly able to keep his wits about himself in Kasumi's presence, though they both seemed to act a bit oddly around each other. Midori Kame-san, as he had no doubt been commanded to do, had _almost_ given everyone save Kodachi a zero, much to her surprise and consternation. While the alligator had been able to resist Shampoo's and Ukyo's efforts with no small amount of trouble, he'd raised a ten for Kasumi before he'd even realized it.

What surprised Ranma was that Akane's miso soup had been pretty good. It hadn't been anywhere near as good as the food made by the other girls, but when one lowers the bar to, "I hope I can contain the contents of my stomach after this," it might as well have had the same impact. Still, she seemed fairly pleased by the responses that she had received from the judges, despite getting the lowest score.

From there the challenges switched between those of the martial arts and those of the marital arts: throwing accuracy had been followed by sewing, which — in turn — had been succeeded by evaluating their limberness, and so on and so forth. Soun continued to give tens and zeroes to the same girls, regardless of their performance. Midori Kame-san managed to give every girl except Kodachi zeroes, with the sole exception being the challenges that involved food. The other judges maintained reasonable assessments, though Ranma wondered if Yasuo might have been favoring his daughter a little.

Nabiki, rather than refraining from being a part of the contest completely, had opted to participate when it came to the marital challenge of managing one's household finances. She'd won, of course, and had come away from it acting as if she'd won the entire contest. Ranma figured that she felt that way because — to her — it had been the only challenge that really mattered.

Ranma hadn't counted on Kasumi taking part in the contest, much less both the marital _and_ martial portions of it. Since there wasn't any physical violence exchanged between any of the contestants, he could see why she would be able to, but not the why behind the why. It wasn't like she applied herself with any particular enthusiasm, though: she simply approached each and every challenge just like she normally would any daily household chore.

She had even managed to win two of the martial arts challenges. The first had been meditation, where she had done a better job of maintaining a meditative state despite various attempts to break it. For example, when all of the girls had suddenly had their backs exposed to an ice cube, she had merely flinched instead of jumping into the air and/or squealing in surprise. The second had been on the knowledge of the human body: on what was what, what was where, and where to strike for what effect. The pained expression that Ranma had caught on Tofu's face near the end of her session had really baffled him, especially since the doctor had given her a ten.

By the end of the contest, it was obvious that Kasumi had dominated the marital challenges. It was a rather mixed bag of victories for the other girls in both categories, and it was too close for a casual observer to tell who had the most victories between the lot of them. Except for one girl: Akane. While she had managed to win a few challenges, those few were more than enough for anyone to tell that she didn't have a chance of winning, and the look of suppressed despair on her face told everyone that she knew it.

Ranma didn't want to see her in such a state, wanted to call the whole thing off and assert that she was the only girl for him, but something held him back. While he knew that the circumstances were irreversible, and that changing his mind — by making up his mind — would bring even more dishonor than prior to the current arrangement, a part of him didn't want to marry Akane. To be more accurate: it didn't want to marry anyone, the circumstances be damned.

Before the final challenge was set to begin, when Kasumi had returned from her challenge session and had sat down with the rest of the audience, Ranma overheard Nabiki speak to her in a hushed tone. "You know, sis... I won't ask you why you bothered with this, but you _do_ know that you're going to win, right?"

Ranma's body stiffened upon hearing that. Kasumi? Win? He tried to dismiss Nabiki's assertion as a guess or an assumption, but he knew that she had probably kept track of everyone's scores in her head, and it wasn't improbable considering her lack of participation in the contest, and thus a distinct lack of distraction. And if he were any judge of Kasumi's attitude during the whole affair, unlike her competitors she probably didn't even have a single clue about what her own score was.

He could hear the anxiety in Kasumi's voice quite clearly when she replied. "W-what? Oh, my... Nabiki... But I... Father said..."

"What _did_ father say?" Nabiki hissed, and Ranma could easily imagine her eyes narrowed into slits and her jaw firmly set.

"H-he... He said that the others would find it offensive if we didn't represent our family and its abilities properly," Kasumi answered, who sounded calmer than before yet still nervous. "That between Akane and myself we'd have both the martial and marital arts of the contest covered. He said... He said that, with so many girls competing, and with the marital arts being my only strength, that there wasn't any chance of me winning and that I shouldn't worry about it."

She must have put more thought into what she had just said, because the words that Ranma heard from her next were conveyed by a sense of dawning realization and horror. "Oh, no... I've done so well in the marital arts challenges... And the others' martial arts victories are rather divided among them..."

Ranma's eyes had gone large in the second that it took him to realize that she was right. There were nearly eighty challenges total, divided equally between the two categories; and, while Kasumi certainly hadn't been the only one to win the marital arts challenges, by comparison she had won far more of those than any one of the other girls had won martial arts challenges. One of them would need to supplement their martial arts victories with enough victories in the marital arts in order to win, and he wasn't sure if any of them had accomplished that.

"Kasumi," Nabiki spoke in a serious tone, yet so quietly that Ranma could barely make out what she was saying, "I know how you feel... in _that_ way." Whatever she had been referring to required a pause, and he had almost been unable to resist the temptation to look and see why. "I know Ranma isn't exactly what you're looking for, but considering the circumstances..."

Ranma had never heard Kasumi sound so lost before. "I... That..."

Before she could finish, the girls participating in the contest were told that the final challenge would commence. Since it involved making a main course for dinner, it required them to head out to the pavilion. Kasumi was the last one to stand and walk toward the exit, and when she walked by Ranma he could clearly see just how troubled and uncertain she was.

Unable to contain himself, his curiosity getting the better of him, he risked a furtive glance in Nabiki's direction. He froze when he found himself caught by her, but more so for the fact that the look that she was giving him said, "You better not disappoint me, _or else_."

Ranma gulped and looked away, realizing that his situation may have developed into something even worse than before. As if it hadn't been bad enough that the girls who would inevitably lose would have to bear it out and live with the results, but what if they lost to a girl who wasn't even interested in him? Could they live with that? And more to the point: could he or Kasumi live with that?

He went through the remainder of the contest — and consequently a meal — in a sort of daze. Even though he had long expected to end up married to someone, someday, it felt surreal for that moment to finally become defined; especially since it promised to change his life in significant ways. He only absently noticed that Kasumi must have been similarly distracted by thoughts of a related nature, considering how Midori Kame-san had possessed the presence of mind to give her food a zero instead of a ten.

And then the moment of truth arrived. While the judges consulted their notepads, Ranma looked over at the girls who would be affected by the scores that were written on them. Ukyo, Shampoo and Kodachi seemed eager to hear the results, as if they had a chance of winning, so he assumed that they hadn't kept track of anyone's score but their own. Akane — by contrast — was sitting stiffly as she stared down at her lap, and her quavering body told him that she was fighting to maintain her composure; she didn't seem to notice "P-chan" as he nudged her with his snout. And then there was Kasumi, who looked at the judges with no small amount of worry, which — in turn — worried him because of what that would mean for both her and himself if she won.

When the judges came to a consensus, most of them did a good job of hiding what they knew. For being an alligator, Midori Kame-san's visage was surprisingly expressive, but that hadn't been the reason for the tempering of Kodachi's enthusiasm. Rather, it had been his lack of eye contact with her, and the avoidance thereof. As for Soun, he didn't even try to hide anything: he looked very, very pleased with himself. It made Ranma wonder how Ukyo, Shampoo and Kodachi could have missed it. Seeing the positive turnaround in his father's mood, he was pretty sure that _he_ hadn't.

Nodoka soon broke away from the other judges and stood before the audience. With a gesture, Ranma (who managed to hide his reluctance well) got to his feet and went to stand at her side. Her eyes swept over everyone once, then settled on the six girls who would be the most affected by her words (aside from her son). She proceeded to clear her throat before speaking in a solemn voice. "First, I'd like to begin by saying that I was very impressed by what I saw today, and that I'd be proud to call any one of you 'daughter.' However, there can only be one. And with a three-point advantage, by unanimous agreement, my son's future wife will be..."

Ranma's heart raced, as he tried to look anywhere but at the girls seated before him. He couldn't bear to see their faces, especially knowing that at least half of them would soon be replaced by heart and gut-wrenching expressions, and that the one that was already like that was unlikely to improve when his mother finished her announcement. Not for the first time did he ask himself why things had to turn out the way that they had.

The dramatic pause also gave him more than enough time to remind himself that his fate was about to be sealed; that the life of a young and fairly carefree man was about to be condemned by more obligations and burdened by even greater responsibilities. And even though he had never really given his future much thought before, he'd never liked the idea of having it decided for him. In particular, he simply couldn't imagine himself sharing his life with someone else, much less having sexual relations and raising children together with them. He couldn't even see himself working a typical and/or mundane job, which included running a dojo. Not yet, at least.

Whether he was ready for it or not, his mother finally said, "Tendo Kasumi."

Many things happened at once. Genma and Soun met halfway and pat each other on the back in celebration. Mousse looked as relieved as a duck could be. Tears came and fell from Akane's eyes, which made "P-chan" torn between comforting her and glaring at Ranma. Ukyo looked positively grief-stricken, but it wasn't long before her father was there to comfort her as she cried into his shoulder. Shampoo had sat in shock for a moment, as if she couldn't believe that she had lost (and to whom), but it wasn't long before she settled on giving Kasumi a murderous glare. Kodachi voiced her denials ever louder until the last of it was screamed as she ran out of the dojo. Tatewaki and Midori Kame-san followed after her, with the former cursing Ranma's name and promising that he would pay before doing so.

But Ranma didn't really notice any of that as he stared at his future wife with a mixture of conflicting emotions. He didn't think that Kasumi noticed much of anything, either, since she was staring back at him like a deer caught in someone's headlights. And when he heard his mother trying to encourage them to do whatever it was that newly-engaged couples did, it had taken him nearly as long for him, as it did for Kasumi, to both register and understand what she was saying.

Kasumi's initial reaction had begun to subside by then, and what that revealed had stopped Ranma from approaching her as she awkwardly got to her feet. Her visage didn't express happiness, acceptance, or even resignation. What he saw was very similar to what he felt, which could be summed up as, "I'm not ready," or, "I don't want this." She was just as uncertain and/or uninterested about their future being tied together as he was.

It suddenly occurred to him that he had purposely done everything humanly possible — as far as honor/anyone would allow — to avoid his current situation. He'd made it quite difficult for Akane to like him, and in a number of ways. He was also solely responsible for Ukyo seeing him as a fiancé instead of as a means of extracting her revenge (while doing one of those things that made it hard for Akane to like him, no less). He had never put his foot down with Shampoo's familiarity, or had gone to the required lengths to make it absolutely clear to either her, Ukyo or Kodachi that he wasn't interested in them — in the romantic sense — at all. And whenever he'd been stuck in a situation where he had been expected to choose between them, for one reason or another, he'd always managed to get out of it; even if he had initially chosen one of them.

But he couldn't get himself out of this one. He was going to marry Kasumi, whether they liked it or not. He'd run out of options.

"...For a human," it suddenly — and unexpectedly — occurred to him.

He felt something change within him, and everything suddenly became clear. He knew exactly what he wanted, and had known all along. He'd been blinded by his need to do what was expected of him, but not so much that he couldn't resist doing it by avoiding its fulfillment for as long as possible.

He had grown up on the road, moving from place to place, meeting and seeing interesting people and places... and learning martial arts. But learning martial arts had often been serious, painful and boring; what he had really anticipated was the next person that he could play with using what he'd learned as a martial artist, so he could have some fun with it. All he'd ever wanted...

Sensing a change in the air, Happosai and Cologne quickly looked toward Ranma. Then they looked at each other, shared a nod that conveyed a mutual understanding of what was going on, before returning their attention back to what had caught their interest.

"All I ever wanted," Ranma whispered to himself, so quietly that even he couldn't hear it, "was to horse around."

It began as a soft, white glow that outlined his body, much like a battle aura would, except it was placid instead of roiling and/or exuding. This only served to catch some attention, just some curious and wondering looks. But a few of those same people gasped and/or voiced inquiries that got everyone else's attention, when the glow around his body began to contract and alter shape alongside his body. Even more surprising and worrisome to most of the onlookers was that the end result had left _her_ in a familiar form... without the application of any water whatsoever.

A few considered approaching her, or were already doing so, but they thought better of it and changed their mind (respectively) when the glow about her body grew in intensity, until she could no longer be seen. And then the shape and size of the aura-like glow began to change, becoming shorter yet more parallel with the ground, as if she had taken to her hands and knees and held her head up high. Except that image — as some noted — didn't exactly match up with what their eyes were seeing.

They learned why when the glow faded away to nothing. Where once stood a young, human man was a creature unlike anything they'd ever seen before, yet had traits that were quite familiar. She — for, despite the creature being new to them, it was obviously female — stood on four legs that ended in hooves, had a black coat, a mane and tail, and possessed the general body shape of a horse (albeit a small one, even smaller than a typical adult pony). But there were a few things separating her from being a horse in fact, like a pair of wings and a single horn that stood out proudly from the forehead. That, and her mane and tail were a vivid red, with the hair seeming to float in the air as if submerged in water. And then, of course, there was the head and the face, which could have been a mix between that of a horse and a human in its shape, size and function.

When Ranma became more lucid and cognizant, what she found when she opened her eyes were a bunch of shocked, slackjawed and otherwise dumbfounded looks, which were all being directed toward her. The only exceptions seemed to be the old ghoul and the old pervert, who appeared to be more intrigued than anything else.

"What?" She demanded, the sound of her voice startling her.

She suddenly became aware that something wasn't right, beyond the fact that she shouldn't have sounded like a girl. For one, her perspective was all wrong, and it kind of felt like she was on her hands and feet... yet not. It also felt like she was no longer wearing clothes.

So she looked down. "What the...!?"

She raised a forehoof and looked upon it in shock. It was then that some of those around her had recovered enough from what had happened, as opposed to those who had been surprised further by the fact that the horse-like thingy — that she had become — could actually speak, and things soon descended into a very familiar chaos despite the unfamiliarity of the situation.


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

There was much in the way of accusations and questions going around, as well as the casting of blame, but Ranma was in no state of mind to pay any attention to what was going on around her. Aside from hearing the distinct sound of Soun's lamentations, and catching her name being uttered amongst the din every now and again, she didn't register much else. Not that she would have been able to make out much more than that anyway, what with so many people speaking at once.

Instead, she found herself thinking about the old priest that she had met a few weeks ago, and what he had said. She hadn't been able to conceive how he could have been right about her condition, but — apparently — he had been. Even now, as her body literally reflected two parts of her name, she couldn't fathom how it could have happened. People didn't just spontaneously become kami, so what made her different from everybody else?

Before she could consider that line of thought any further, she was abruptly forced to focus on her environment when an explosion occurred nearby. When she found ground zero, she saw that her father and Soun had been charcoaled by said explosion, with the latter of the two already unconscious.

Before her father joined his friend and collapsed, he held up a wooden signpost (even though he wasn't a panda at the moment) that said, "Why!?"

After the Saotome patriarch hit the floor face-first, everyone turned to regard Cologne when she broke the silence that followed with a chuckle and wryly stated, "Well, I suppose that's _one_ way to get their attention."

"Sometimes sacrifices have to be made," Happosai replied in a sagely tone of voice, before taking a languid pull from his pipe, looking — for all the world — like someone who had just done something sane and reasonable.

Rather than reply to that, Cologne cleared her throat and addressed their audience before anyone could take advantage of the opening that she hoped to make use of herself. "Anyway, while it was amusing to watch your reaction to Ranma's transformation, I think it's about time to explain what happened before things get out of hand."

"You know what happened to my son?" Nodoka asked, who had been one of the few silent ones since the aforementioned transformation, having not known how to react to it or what to do.

"I do," Cologne replied.

"You see," Happosai piped up, still acting the part of a sage, "Ranma wanted to be a girl all along, but — obviously — she messed up her escape plan somehow."

"What!?" Akane, Ukyo and Shampoo exclaimed simultaneously.

Nodoka loomed over her child as she began to unsheath her sword. "Is this true!?"

"Of course not!" Ranma retorted, as she nervously backed away from her mother. "I never wanted to be a girl _or_ planned to escape!"

"Ow!" Happosai complained, after he had been hit on the head by Cologne's cane. "What was that for!?"

Cologne regarded him with a scowl. "I _thought_ we were on the same page."

Happosai looked confused. "We're not?"

With a sigh, Cologne returned her attention to the room at large. "While Ranma's denial is true enough, it's not entirely so."

"What do you mean?" Came Ranma's defensive reply.

"What I mean," Cologne patiently continued, her gaze now focused on the person who had interrupted her, "is that you had not made a conscious decision to do this, but — unless I'm mistaken — it was nonetheless the result of a real desire to escape the situation that you found yourself in."

Nodoka frowned. "That doesn't sound very manly..."

Ranma began to sweat as her mother fidgeted with her sword.

"I'd like to know how this was possible in the first place," Tofu spoke up, not only for the sake of his curiosity but for Ranma's sake as well. To his relief, he'd succeeded in diverting Nodoka's attention away from her child.

"I was getting to that," Cologne replied a bit testily. "And what made it possible is really quite simple: the neko-ken."

Before anyone could question how that could be the case, Happosai exploded with a mixture of surprise and indignation. "Wha-a-a-a-a-at!? That can't be true!" He suddenly rounded on Ranma with a glare, and pointed an accusatory finger at her. "Since when have you known the neko-ken!?"

"Um," Ranma began uncertainly, who felt a bit nervous about getting into a confrontation with the grandmaster of her school while in an unfamiliar body, "since six or seven years ago...?"

The answer stunned Happosai, who didn't seem to take the news very well. "But that means... The whole time... When you got in my way... I could have..."

Many of those present bore a large drop of sweat on their heads as they watched him stumble over to a dark corner, where he fell to his knees and wept into his hands for the many opportunities that had been lost to him.

"As I was saying," Cologne continued from where she had left off, who sounded a bit exasperated, "the neko-ken made the transformation possible. It's a quick but irresponsible way for a person to make a connection with their spirit, by forcing them to escape their reality and having it create a substitute in their place."

"This usually and mostly results in the mind being affected," she went on, "and due to the circumstances during one's initial contact with their spirit, becoming a cat in mind is often the result — hence the name of the technique. _However_, once a connection has been made with one's spirit, it is not so easily dismissed."

Her gaze fell heavily upon Ranma. "Without many years of training, to learn how to even _begin_ to control one's relationship with their spirit, the interaction between the body and the spirit will largely be reactionary and unbidden. The main challenge is that your spirit tends to know you better than you know yourself, because the spirit can hear the subconscious part of us that we are often unaware of beyond intuition. In your case, Ranma: because you initiated contact with your spirit with the desire to escape a problem, and continued to communicate in that way, that's how your spirit learned when to listen."

"Does that sound about right?" She posed to Ranma.

It was with some reluctance that Ranma nodded her head, considering just what it was that she was admitting to before so many people, and to certain ones in particular. It wasn't so much about being seen as a coward that was the issue, since she found it perfectly normal to run away from a problem long enough in order to come up with a solution, but that the three girls who had feelings for her probably wouldn't appreciate knowing that she had never really been interested in any one of them.

More to the point, however: now that she was a spiritual being, what had once been her subconscious thoughts were now within conscious range, and thus she had access to the corresponding memories. As Cologne had spoken, she had begun to understand how and why things had led to her being painted into a corner, with no choice left but to marry Kasumi. Considering how accurate the old crone had been so far, she suspected that she had undergone the very training that she had mentioned.

"So," Akane said with a smile, who sounded unusually calm and casual, "you've been stringing us all along since the beginning, have you?"

"Er..." Came Ranma's intelligent response, who didn't need to see how upset Ukyo and Shampoo were to know how bad of a position she was in. "Not really?"

"'Not really!?'" Akane shrieked, whose emotional state had been made raw by the outcome of the contest. "I can't believe you!"

"Yeah!" Ukyo agreed, who was no less upset as one of the losers of the contest. "Pull the other one while you're at it, you jackass!"

Akane and Ukyo began to advance upon Ranma with the intent to do her bodily harm, with Shampoo joining in, and the object of their ire quailed and backed away from them. Fortunately for said object of ire, Cologne interposed herself between her and them, whose presence and severe expression was cause enough to make them pause.

"Let's not act rashly," she advised in a measured tone.

"But, great-grandmother!" Shampoo tried to protest.

Cologne silenced her with a look. "Even if Ranma had held no interest in you, I doubt that he had strung you all along like that on purpose."

Many of those present had acquired a confused expression on their face in response to that, and Ukyo was the first to ask, "What do you mean?"

"Other than the fact that you'd be giving him too much credit for accomplishing such a thing, much less for so long?" Came Cologne's rhetorical response, which earned her a dirty look from Ranma, who wasn't sure whether she should take her comment as an insult or as a compliment. "Well, do you think he wanted to become what he now is?"

The three girls returned their focus to Ranma, and for the first time they saw her as the creature that she had become instead of the boy with the curse that they had all become familiar with. While Ranma had been known to do stupid things (and for reasons that were just as stupid), whatever she had done had always been a temporary arrangement, usually with the intention of achieving some kind of goal. Looking upon Ranma now, and bearing in mind what Cologne had said a moment previous, they realized that her transformation may not have been on purpose. If so, and if one's spirit could produce such a physical alteration, then might it also be able to alter one's behavior and decisions?

Before any of the three girls could respond, Ranma found the opportunity to ask the most pertinent question on her mind, since she was worried about her condition and it happened to be relevant to what Cologne had just asked. "Um... I'm not stuck like this, am I?"

"Stuck?" Cologne replied, before she turned aside so she could regard Ranma. "No. However, now that your body and spirit have become one and the same, which means that the solution will have to be achieved with will and intent, the obstacle that you'll have to overcome is yourself. So long as the reason for you being in this form persists, you'll keep yourself in that form if it is preferable to the alternative."

Ranma was ready to argue how she couldn't possibly prefer being whatever-it-was that she had become, but she failed to speak when she realized that that wasn't the case. While it was true enough that she would rather be human, the new depth of awareness to her thoughts was quick to reveal that she hadn't even given her new form a chance to prove whether it was preferable or not.

From there, she was reminded that there was a very real chance of having to commit seppuku if she were in a form appropriate for marriage yet refused to do so. Even if she were to become a human girl, there was no telling the lengths that her parents and Soun would go to in order to make the marriage between a Saotome and Tendo happen. The thought of marrying a guy was bad enough, but it would be made worse by the guilt that would come from being semi-responsible for said guy having once been a full-time girl, and that girl would more than likely be Kasumi.

As if to confirm one of her fears, her mother conveyed a message to her by regarding her with a frown, as she spoke up in response to Cologne's words. "But the engagement is a matter of honor, and it has become even more paramount to do it now that we've gone through the effort to clear up which party has the right to marry my son."

Nabiki, who had thought of a profitable idea and didn't want to miss out on the opportunity, decided that it might be a good idea to jump in to help Ranma. "Don't worry, obasan. While he may not want to marry, I'm sure he's willing to do what obligation demands. It's just a matter of waiting for him to learn how to control what his spirit does with his thoughts." She turned to Cologne and gave her a significant look. "Right?"

Seeing the trick for what it was, Cologne decided to play along, as she had her own reason for wanting to save Ranma from having to commit seppuku. "That's right." She turned her attention to Nodoka and gave her a reassuring smile. "All he really needs to do is learn more self-control."

"Well," Nodoka said in a thoughtful tone, who failed to understand the distinction that Nabiki and Cologne had made in regard to Ranma's condition, "if it's really just a matter of self-control..."

"Oh, it _is_!" Ranma readily agreed, with several emphatic nods of the head.

Nodoka was relieved to hear that. "I guess I don't have anything to worry about, then."

With their ruse a success, Cologne took the opportunity to suggest, "Since the night's still young, I could even help your son get a good start on his training after we're done putting away what we used for the contest."

"That's a great idea," Nodoka replied, her face brightening. "Let's not tarry any longer, then." She glanced at her husband with a measure of annoyance before adding, "The sooner we resolve this, the better."

With that said, everyone began the task of doing the reverse of what they had done early in the morning. The mood was nearly as different from that time as well, because a number of people did their work with a heavy heart instead of being hopeful, and/or with disappointment instead of expectation. Only a few went about their business showing a neutral or better countenance, and among them there were fewer still who were displaying how they truly felt.

Another notable difference was the noticeable divide between Ranma and at least half of everyone else. For Akane, Ukyo and Shampoo, they wanted to avoid a potent reminder of what they had very recently failed to gain, as they had yet to come to terms with it completely. By and large, however, the most common factor was how awkward it was to interact with the human-turned-horse, who exacerbated the issue by feeling — and thus acting — the most awkward of them all.

Ranma had wanted to help with the task, but there hadn't been much that could be carried on her back, and — while she could certainly walk well enough — she hadn't been all that confident about her ability to transport things without dropping them. On top of that, her mouth had been less useful than one of her human hands had been, and she hadn't liked the idea of putting various things in her mouth.

She had tried to do her part, but the awkwardness, unfamiliarity with her body, and being among the least productive had really gotten to her. The final straw had been broken when her father, who had been revived (along with Soun) for the task, had complained and chastised her when they next crossed paths. When they had parted ways, Ranma had done so in a huff while her father was curled up on the ground with his hands between his legs, courtesy of a surprise mule kick to the groin.

"Stupid old man," she muttered, as she made her way to the large mirror in the bath. "_He's_ the one who taught me the neko-ken in the first place..."

After entering the changing room, she paused in front of the door that led into the bath. Once she steeled herself for what she would see in the mirror, it was with a bit of trouble that she slid the door open with one of her forehooves and proceeded to enter the bath, where she soon found herself staring at her reflection.

She had seen enough of herself before to figure out that she wasn't a normal horse, but seeing her face for the first time really made that clear. While the horn was typically attributed to a special kind of horse, the head and face was somewhat humanish in shape and appearance. Altogether, she had no idea what she was: with the wings, she could have been a pegasus; and with the horn, a unicorn. Since she had both, did that make her a... pegacorn or something?

It was embarrassing to admit, but she thought that she looked kind of cute. The red mane, tail and eyes went great with the black coat and horn, and the way that her hair seemed to float in the air was kind of neat. She turned to see her profile, then made a few faces, before she felt that she had seen enough.

"Well," she thought to herself, "if I had to be something that isn't human, at least I'm easy on the eyes." She paused when something occurred to her, which made her frown. "I should probably watch out for little girls, though... That's not something that I want to add to the list of things that I've been mobbed by. I'd never live it down."


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Though her wings didn't seem capable of flight, Ranma decided to go outside to see if she could fly with them or not. It wasn't like she had much else to do, and it was just too awkward being around most everyone else. With the latter thought in mind, she had no desire for an audience, so she found a secluded part of the garden where she could conduct her test in private.

She was rather surprised when she was able to achieve lift with her wings. However, between that and her inexperience, she found herself going nowhere fast or steady, until she eventually managed to roll to one side and fall onto her back. And then she had to learn how to get back on her feet from that position, which just added insult to injury.

While the outcome had aggravated her a fair bit, the feeling passed quickly enough, as she imagined what she might be able to do once she had gotten enough practice with her wings. Not only might there be a bright spot to her transformation, but she might even have something to regret once she was back to normal. Well, assuming that things worked out for her, at any rate.

The direction of her thoughts made her frown, as she began to consider how she had come to be transformed in the first place. Now that her awareness of the events surrounding its progression had been expanded, she was able to make sense out of everything that had happened to her (not that it improved her mood any).

It had begun at Jusenkyo, with the threat of falling into one of the springs. She had wanted to remain herself rather than become something else, especially something that wasn't human (like her father). Her spirit had been able to sense the nature of the springs, and the nyannichuan had been the closest — and thus easiest — to get to.

However, the choice that had influenced her to maneuver toward that particular spring hadn't been so simple or conventional, as her spirit had a very different way of perceiving things. When she had expressed the desire to remain herself, which could be summed up simply as being "Saotome Ranma," her spirit had assumed that her name was a literal representation of herself, rather than a figurative one. So, if she couldn't avoid falling into a spring, at least she'd remain human and "_her_self."

That had set the standard for when she had been at war with the idea of getting married without having a choice in the matter, as well as when she needed to be quick enough to take the phoenix pill from Cologne. While the former had come into play far too many times to think about (and was pretty straightforward, besides), the latter had been a bit puzzling to her until now, because she hadn't been able to figure out how she had increased her speed so much in a matter of minutes, just from substituting fire with a tank of piranhas. As it turned out: because the heat from the fire had prevented her from doing her best, and she had doubted that her kachu tenshin amaguriken training would be complete unless she could perform at that level and push its limits, it wasn't until the tank of piranhas that she had felt confident and sure enough of her success, which had — in turn — inspired her spirit to endow her with the speed that would help her return to what passed for normal.

She'd avoided becoming a horse at Jusenkyo because she hadn't wanted to be an animal/creature. While that desire had remained unchanged, the same could not be said for the circumstances. Until a short time ago she had been able to avoid getting married with the aid of the "war" aspect of her name, but with the things that she was both willing and unwilling to do to avoid it otherwise, she had ensured that it would be a temporary solution. However, when the time to marry someone had finally become unavoidable, she still hadn't been able go through with it, to the point where avoiding even _that_ would be more preferable than the exact means of escape.

She wasn't sure why she hadn't become a normal horse, but she suspected that it had something to do with becoming a spiritual creature (or a kami, as the old priest had put it). And exactly how _that_ had happened was unknown to her, though she had an idea. Well, she supposed that it was better this way, seeing as how normal horses couldn't fly. And speaking of which...

Now that she knew that it was possible for her to fly, she decided to get some more practice in while everyone else was still occupied. It wasn't like she had anything else better to do, and she'd rather make mistakes when no one was around to catch an embarrassing moment.

She began by trying to keep herself upright and stable, without moving anywhere. Once she had that down, she proceeded to slowly move forward and back, left and right, then up and down. By then she had become rather absorbed with her flying, noticing neither the grin on her face or the passage of time as she picked up the pace, so it came as a bit of a surprise when she heard someone clear their throat. She turned to look at the source without thinking, and ended up crashing cheek-first into the trunk of a tree.

"Having fun while we were all working, were you?" Cologne queried from atop the perimeter wall, amused by what her interruption had caused.

Ranma shook the impact off before she grumbled, "Well, I _was_."

Cologne allowed herself a moment of cackling, at Ranma's expense, before she became somber and joined Ranma on the ground. "Well, we were able to buy you some time, so don't waste it. If you take too long to make up your mind, someone's going to wonder if it's really an issue of self-control, or through your lack of accomplishment see the issue for what it actually is."

Ranma turned away from her and sighed. "I know, and I appreciate the help, but..."

She paused, wondering exactly what she wanted to say, and whether she should say it to Cologne — or to anyone, for that matter — if it ever came to her. She'd never made it a habit to share much about herself with anyone, particularly in regard to the more intimate parts, and she was reluctant to start doing that despite the current circumstances. Just thinking about it made her uncomfortable, so she shook her head and directed her attention to a topic of greater interest.

"Anyway," she continued, as she turned to face Cologne once more, "how long have you known about my condition? And how could you tell?"

Cologne didn't bat an eye at the change in topic and object of focus. "Oh, that? Well, let's start with how I was able to tell. Rather than hear me make claims, though, why not humor me and try to get a glimpse of my spirit?"

Ranma looked at her with an incredulous expression on her face. "Okay..."

She didn't really know how to go about it, so she just looked at Cologne with the desire to see her spirit. To her surprise, it worked; however, what really surprised her was that Cologne's spirit didn't match her body at all. Not only wasn't her spirit short and old, but it was almost entirely separated from her due to being two or so meters tall, rather than being encased by her body (as she had expected). What really got her was when the beautiful and statuesque young woman had winked at her, while the old crone beneath her had not.

Actually, to say that she was surprised was a gross understatement. "What the heck? What's up with that?"

"What you just saw is the greatest secret of the Joketsuzoku," Cologne replied, who smiled wryly at Ranma's response. "As such, I'll leave you to wonder about it while I get to the point: imagine _my_ surprise when my great granddaughter's husband-to-be's spirit was the same as the body he was cursed with by a spring in Jusenkyo."

Ranma blinked her eyes a few times. "Wait, what?"

"Exactly," Cologne agreed, with a hint of amusement. "Was the boy that my great granddaughter was to marry actually a girl at heart, or was something else going on? Well, I had intended to test your worthiness to begin with, and I figured I could take care of two birds with one stone by using the full-body cat's tongue pressure point. After all, you were bound to respond differently to it depending on whether you wanted to be a girl or not."

Ranma's brow furrowed in thought as she considered the new perspective that had just been revealed to her, regarding that particular situation. "So, when you tricked me with that piece of candy..."

Cologne nodded her head. "By then I was sure that your unrelenting fight against your affliction meant that there was something else going on with your spirit, rather than having a secret desire to be a girl. I couldn't very well ask to put you under observation, considering our relationship at the time, so I made sure that you had a reason to seek me out. That, and perhaps extending your time as a girl would reveal something, such as if your desire to be a boy would affect your spirit or become strong enough to change you back without hot water."

"As if I'd be that lucky," Ranma thought to herself.

"And I was right," Cologne continued. "In the few hours since I had last checked up on you, and had learned that you weren't fast enough to take the phoenix pill away from me, you had somehow achieved the ability to do just that. Normally, even if the fire hadn't acted as such a deterrent, there should have been weeks worth of training ahead of you to become as fast as I am, much less faster than that."

Ranma nodded her head in agreement. "Yeah, I just realized that myself. At the time, though, I just assumed that I was already close to being that fast. That, and I had only seemed so much faster because you hadn't expected any improvement from me, so you hadn't adjusted your guard accordingly."

"It did come as a bit of a surprise," Cologne admitted. "Until I realized that I'd lost the necklace, I thought I'd misheard the sound that you had made when you had tried to take it from me."

"Anyway," she went on, wanting to get the conversation back on track, "I knew that something was up, just not what. There are quite a number of ways for someone to be empowered by their spirit, but it is usually conscious and found in much older individuals, due to how long any respectable training regimen would take. While I had caught the connection with your name, and it would certainly explain someone's unawareness, that tends to come with veneration or age. Since I doubted that it was either, especially since the former tends to come with the latter, I decided to see if I could learn anything with a fight, particularly if your relationship with your spirit allowed you to best me."

"Did I?" Ranma asked, who looked thoughtful and unsure. "Akane'd told me what had happened afterward, and she'd said..." She paused, and a look of shock suddenly replaced what she had been expressing before. "Wait, I... I can remember what I'd done while under the neko-ken!"

Cologne wasn't surprised in the least, who carried on with the conversation as if nothing of note had happened. "Of course you do: a part of what you've become was once the very thing that took over when your fear of cats became too much for you to bear."

"So," Cologne carried on, "do you remember what I said when I had given you the phoenix pill instead of continuing our fight?"

It took Ranma a moment to gather her thoughts after such a revelation, especially since she may no longer be afraid of cats. "Um... You'd said..." Her face brightened when she recalled the memory. "Oh! You'd given me the phoenix pill for having so much spirit."

"For having a _fighting_ spirit," Cologne corrected, "but that's close enough. Now you know why I'd seemed so unrelenting at first, by unfairly switching the phoenix pill with a piece of candy, and then freely giving it up without you winning the fight in more definitive terms."

Ranma didn't sit so much as fall onto her haunches, from feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything that she had learned that night. "So you weren't serious about wanting me to marry Shampoo after that?"

"Not really," Cologne replied, with an absent shrug of the shoulders. "Believe me, if I'd wanted you back in our village badly enough, you would have been there already. Of course, you'd likely end up stuck as a girl or a horse, depending on the circumstances, so I saw little point in it."

Ranma didn't look completely convinced. "What about Shampoo?"

Cologne released a long-suffering sigh. "If things don't change, I fear that I'll have to start my family line all over again." Seeing the coming question because of the expression on Ranma's face, she headed it off by adding, "Don't ask," before she continued. "All I can tell you is that we — the Joketsuzoku — don't make a habit of coddling our young. We prefer to give them enough knowledge and advice to make the right decisions, but the freedom to make their own mistakes and come into their own wisdom. While I may have aided her a few times, and even used her for a bit of amusement when she found the reversal jewel, all you have to do — to know my position on the matter — is recall what I did with the love pills. Or, rather, what I didn't do."

When Ranma thought about it, she recalled that only Shampoo had tried to get her to eat one of the love pills. While Cologne hadn't stopped her, she hadn't encouraged her or helped either, much less taken the initiative herself. Well, she had apparently gotten the day and lifetime pills mixed up when Akane had eaten one, but it was understandable to make that kind of mistake after being parted with it for what could have been a hundred years (which was how long ago Happosai had stolen the ultimate weakness moxibustion chart).

Thinking about it further, Cologne had helped her plenty of times without asking for anything in return, and sometimes without needing to be requested for said help. Most of the time she just kept to herself, not bothering her at all, rather than scheming and helping Shampoo all of the time. Among the crowd who had multiple counts against them for giving her trouble, she was one of the least active of the offenders.

"I see that you understand," Cologne observed, from reading the expression on Ranma's face. "Well, if that's all, I think it's about time I send these old bones to bed."

"Wait!" Ranma suddenly called out, just as Cologne had turned away from her. As she was regarded with a cocked eyebrow, it was with some embarrassment that she said, "Um... I wanted to say, 'thanks.' Y'know, for earlier."

Cologne gave a short nod in response, and favored her with a piercing stare. "Just make sure that you make the most out of the time you've been given. If you don't, you might live to regret it."

It was on that heavy note that Cologne leapt over the perimeter wall — and beyond — in a single bound, leaving Ranma to dwell on her parting words. She did, for a time, before she decided that she had done enough thinking for the night. She figured that she could think about everything some more tomorrow, since she had at least that much time to spare.

Since she didn't feel especially tired, and she wasn't ready to deal with or otherwise adjust to being around anyone else in her current form, she decided to get some more flying practice in. As she rose back up to all four legs, she began to contemplate the wisdom of making a night of it, or doing it until she was tired enough to fall asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

When she had to wonder how a horse might sleep, one could say that — for the time being, at least — her decision was pretty much made up for her. Besides, she wasn't sure how a horse with wings would be able to sleep comfortably, anyway.


	7. Chapter 6

**Temporary Note**

Most of this chapter isn't new, because I decided to split the last chapter in two, so you're technically only getting half of an update this time. (The new material starts at the line break below.) I'm already working on the next chapter, so hopefully there will be more of this ready before too long.

**Chapter 6**

Aside from her mother asking her to go to bed while said mother was about to do just that, who was understanding enough to allow her to stay up a bit longer upon request, no one else had interrupted Ranma for some time. A few had stopped to watch her from the engawa, once she had enough confidence to fly out in the open, but they had left it at that and had eventually gone about their own business.

She didn't have a good measure of time while she was trying to perform one aerial maneuver after another, with each one usually being more ambitious than the last, but she was pretty sure that it was approaching midnight if it wasn't that late already. That's why the feeling of being watched had caught more than just her attention, and had led her to seek out its source.

Which was why it came as a bit of a surprise when she spotted Kasumi watching her from inside of the family room instead of the engawa, standing partially behind a wall, as if trying to be surreptitious. She wore a nightgown and a pair of slippers, and her hair was free of accessory, which meant that she was either going to bed or had been there already.

When she appeared before her and hovered at a height where their eyes were about level with each other, Kasumi let out a quiet gasp of surprise and raised a hand to her mouth. "Oh...! I didn't mean to bother you..."

"You weren't bothering me," Ranma replied, as she moved into the house and landed carefully onto the wooden floor of the engawa, not wanting to damage it with her hooves. "I just didn't expect you to be here... Watching me."

Went unsaid was the obvious question of why Kasumi had been watching her, particularly at such a time while seemingly trying to do it in secret, and because of that her statement was followed by an awkward silence.

For a time, Kasumi appeared to be anxious and indecisive, either wanting to say something or fidgeting in a way that suggested a desire to go somewhere else. That made Ranma uncomfortable, who began to consider making some kind of excuse so she could get back to what she had been doing, for both their sakes.

In the end, though, it was Kasumi who ruefully admitted, "I... feel partly responsible for what's happened, and couldn't sleep."

Ranma looked at her questioningly, confused. "But it wasn't your fault."

Kasumi shook her head, looking both guilty and ashamed. "No, I was being selfish, even though I shouldn't be so picky."

Ranma didn't know what to make of that. "I don't understand..."

After hesitating for a moment, with evident uncertainty, Kasumi found the resolve to say, "Could you... join me in my bedroom? I don't feel comfortable talking about it out in the open like this..."

Ranma wasn't sure what "it" was, but it seemed to be enough of a touchy subject to discourage her from accepting the invitation, and under normal circumstances she may very well have. After all, while Kasumi had always been accommodating and approachable in the past, there had also been a sort of barrier between them, that had prevented them from becoming more than friendly acquaintances. However, with the establishment of their engagement and the official removal of conflicts of interest, she may very well have to accept Kasumi as her wife in order to become human and male again.

To that potential end, their relationship had to change. "Um... Sure."

She didn't want to make much noise, or bother trying to walk up the stairs on four legs, so she took flight once again and followed Kasumi to her bedroom. Once there, she opted to land on the flokati rug while Kasumi turned on the light and closed the door behind them softly, who stood by said door awkwardly afterward.

After settling down on her haunches, Ranma eventually broke the silence after a bit of hesitation. "So, um... What did you want to talk about?"

With a sigh of resignation, Kasumi made her way over to Ranma and joined her on the rug, but it wasn't until another stretch of silence had passed that she finally spoke. "How do I put this..."

Ranma waited patiently for Kasumi to work up the courage for what she had to say. Soon, however, she began to wonder whether or not she should be concerned about what might be revealed to her, considering the amount of trouble that she was having in getting it out (because of how it might be related to her feelings of guilt, in regard to her transformation).

When Kasumi was ready to tell her what needed to be said, she took a deep breath, looked her straight in the eye, and said, "I don't like men."

Ranma blinked her eyes a few times. "Oh..." Then the significance of her statement made itself apparent to her. "Oh! You mean...?"

Since there was no going back now, Kasumi was able to nod her head in confirmation. "I'm only interested in... other girls."

As Ranma digested that information, it seemed to make enough sense to her. Kasumi could probably have her pick of any man in the area who was not already spoken for, yet she'd never actively pursued a relationship with anyone. Strangely enough, though, no one seemed to be pursuing her either, even though she knew for a fact that she was highly admired by those in the neighborhood and the nearby shopping district. The only person who seemed to show any blatant interest in her was Tofu (if one could call his previous behavior "interest," at any rate).

However, that was another matter. If Kasumi liked girls, that meant that she _could_ have been interested in her, since she had been able to turn into one not too long ago. The problem was that their relationship would have been made to appear traditional on the surface, because that's what people would have expected. While her social knowledge had always been a bit lacking, her curse had made her acutely aware of the fact that sexual deviation wasn't tolerated all that much. Assuming that her reservation toward sex (in general) wasn't an issue, not only would they have to work to keep the truth of their relationship a secret, but they would have been expected to have children (which would require heterosexual intercourse), and on top of that she had a mother who always seemed to be ready to lop off her head at the first sign of unmanliness.

It's possible that something like that could have been managed, but it certainly wouldn't have been an ideal affair, especially considering how long the arrangement could end up being. So, not only was Kasumi's secrecy understandable, so was the prospect of avoiding a marriage to a man who could actually become a girl. Of course, she suspected that there was a bit more to it than that.

"I guess I wasn't your type, then?" She surmised.

With an apologetic and somewhat regretful expression on her face, Kasumi gave a slight nod of her head in reply. "I'm really sorry..." She lowered her eyes and sighed. "I haven't been able to find a single girl who shares my interest, yet I still passed up an opportunity to marry one even though that's normally impossible."

"Like I said," Ranma tried to reassure her, "this wasn't your fault. It was probably bound to happen at some point, anyway."

"Maybe," Kasumi half-heartedly agreed.

During the break in conversation that followed, she eventually raised her eyes and bit her lip as she examined the creature before her more intently than intended, which prompted Ranma to ask, "What?"

Kasumi blushed a bit at being caught. However, considering what she had already managed to share about herself, she found the nerve to say what was on her mind. "Oh, well, I was just thinking that you turned out rather cute."

Ranma chuckled in response to the admission. "Great, so it's not only me." In response to the confused look on Kasumi's face, she smiled wryly and added, "Knowing my luck, I'm probably going to be mobbed by little girls as soon as I make an appearance out in public."

"Oh," Kasumi voiced, as she imagined what that would look like.

Having been reminded of a problem that was more current and applicable, Ranma sighed and said, "To be honest, though, at the moment I'm more worried about how I'm supposed to get any sleep."

Kasumi's confusion returned. "Is that a problem?"

Ranma cocked one side of her brow and extended one of her wings. "Well, I can't exactly sleep on one of these, can I?"

"But horses can sleep standing up," Kasumi informed her.

"They can?" Ranma asked, who got a nod in response. "How?"

Kasumi looked thoughtful for a time, as she tried to remember the specifics, but eventually had to convey an expression of apology and embarrassment when she came up empty. "I can't seem to remember the details..."

"That's okay," Ranma assured her, though not really sounding as if it were. "I don't like the idea of sleeping like that, anyway."

A silence descended upon the room after that, as neither was sure how to continue on the same topic, or what else it could be followed up by. Before things could become awkward, however, Kasumi came to a decision. It was partly inspired by the fact that she still felt a bit at fault for Ranma's transformation, although she would have tried to help her with her sleeping problem under slightly different circumstances regardless.

"I know," she said, before she stood up and moved over to her bed, "why not try lying down and see if it's possible first?"

Ranma watched as Kasumi pat the surface of her bed in an inviting fashion, with a dubious expression on her face, but ultimately decided that it wouldn't hurt to try. So thinking, she got up and hopped onto the foot of the bed, where she proceeded to take as much care as she could when she went to rest on her side.

To her surprise, her wings didn't give her any problems. "Huh?" She tried to roll over onto her other side, and her wings didn't have any qualm with that either. "Huh. I guess this will work out, after all..."

With the possibility of sleep now on the horizon, and being in the position and place that she was, her fatigue finally caught up with her and made her yawn long and hard. "Man, I'm bushed..."

When she tried to get up, however, she was surprised when Kasumi gently rested her hand against her side to discourage her from doing so. "Kasumi?"

"You can rest here, if you want," Kasumi offered softly.

The gesture made Ranma confused, and a little worried. "But..."

Kasumi retrieved her hand while gazing meaningfully at her prospective spouse, having gained the wherewithal to say the following after sharing her greatest secret with her. "I was thinking that we should give a relationship between us a chance. For both of our sakes, should we marry, I'd rather that we both _want_ to."

Ranma was made speechless, but she had to agree that she wouldn't want to marry out of convenience, or starting a relationship by being forced together. While Kasumi was a little older than her, she could overlook her age easily enough. Even though she wasn't exactly her type either, the truth was that she wasn't really sure what — exactly — her type even was. Still, she would have to be blind to not see her beauty on the outside, and an idiot to not recognize the beauty within.

Her features softened, and she offered a final, token amount of resistance. "But what if someone sees me leaving your room?"

"Only your mother is up as early as I am," Kasumi replied, who smiled slightly with amusement. "And I doubt she'd offer any objection."

In response to that, Ranma plopped her head onto the bed in defeat. "Yeah, you're probably right about that..."

Kasumi's expression suddenly turned to one of concern. "Will you be alright there? Would you like a blanket, or a pillow?"

When Ranma thought about it, she was mildly surprised that she felt comfortable enough as she was. "No, I think this will be fine."

"Well, if you're sure..." Kasumi replied, giving Ranma a chance to change her mind.

When she didn't receive a response, other than a slight nod of the head, she decided that it was time to turn off her bedroom light and get into bed. In the time that it had taken her to do the first part of that and return, Ranma had drifted off to sleep. She regarded her for a moment, with the moonlight bestowing upon her an ethereal appearance, before she turned away and got into bed.

Once she was settled and comfortable beneath her covers, she looked across the bed and thought, "I _really_ hope everything works out..."

* * *

As it turned out, no one saw Ranma leave from Kasumi's room later that morning, since she had decided to stay up and leave with the owner of said room instead of falling back asleep. At such an early hour, the only other person likely to be awake would have been her mother, who — on that particular morning — had risen early enough to be the first to get things in the furo and kitchen ready for the morning's activities.

However, even though she had not been seen, the expression on her mother's face — upon first greeting — had made her worry. It may have just been her fears interpreting the expression as a knowing one, but she could have sworn that her mother had an idea of where she had spent the night. After all, what would have stopped her mother from peeking into Kasumi's room while they had still been asleep?

Either way, her mother had not said a word about it, and for that she was thankful. Which was just as well, because it hadn't taken her very long to be presented with her first, real problem of the day: her morning ablutions. Well, it probably wouldn't have been _too much_ of a problem if her mother hadn't suggested that she and Kasumi take their bath together, since she couldn't very well be expected to do an adequate job of washing herself between the configuration of her limbs and the hooves that were at the ends of them.

It had been far too embarrassing to consider, much less to accept, so she had excused herself to the garden with much haste, unmindful of what her mother or Kasumi might have said in the process. Had her mother offered to do the job herself, she would have only been embarrassed by the fact that she needed someone's help to do something so basic. However, Kasumi was someone that she was expected to have an intimate relationship with, which was far too embarrassing on its own (regardless of her present form).

So, in light of having to pass up some of her usual morning routines, she decided to get herself more acquainted with her new limbs. While flight was both convenient and fun for getting around, it wasn't for all occasions, and the martial artist part of her wanted her to excel at using her new legs, if for no other reason than to avoid a liability if flight wasn't an option.

That's how her father found her some time later, when she was practicing her range of mobility while standing on her hind legs. While she didn't know a whole lot about horses, she was pretty sure that they didn't have the range of movement that she did, which had come as a pleasant surprise. It certainly couldn't compare with what she could do as a human, but it was more than enough to dispel thoughts of being greatly handicapped if she had to fight someone in her usual style. Speaking of which...

"Boy," her father spoke up from just outside of the house, his arms crossed over his chest, "you look ridiculous."

Ranma lowered herself to her forelegs and turned to face her father with a smirk. "Oh, so we're a match, for once?"

"Ha!" Her father exclaimed, as he jabbed his index finger at her. "Is that all you've got? Pretty words to go with your pretty appearance?"

Feigning innocence, so she could better project her next verbal assault, Ranma blinked her eyes at that last part and asked, "You think I'm pretty?"

"No! That's not—" Her father began to sputter, as he tried to come up with a good way to cover his slip-up, before he gave up and suddenly proclaimed, "I mean: prepare yourself!"

Ranma had expected her father to continue their morning sparring session despite her new form, but she hadn't expected being able to handle him well enough. She was still at her father's mercy, of course, but it wasn't long before she adapted well enough to mitigate the effectiveness of her father's attacks.

That was until her father taunted her with, "Is this all you have to offer? Is this what you gave up _being a man_ for? What a joke!"

She knew what he was trying to do, because she didn't want to remain in her current form either. She knew, but she still had her pride, and now she wanted to win so she could throw the so-called "joke" right back into her father's face. And if she could come out on top despite being made weak by the ultimate weakness moxibustion, what was stopping her from being the victorious one under better circumstances?

Any semblance of defense was pretty much forgotten, as she tried to push the limits of what she could do. However, even though she managed to get in a couple of good hits on her father, which were a couple more than she had accomplished before, she still found herself the one who was sprawled out on the ground, finding it hard to stand back up.

Then, when her father dove in for the finishing move, where his attack would stop short of its mark to make the point instead of forcing her into submission via another physical altercation (it was just a sparring match, after all), time seemed to slow down for her. As her father descended upon her in slow motion, she was well aware that she was going to lose, but she was too stubborn to accept that outcome until the very end. In her defiance, she tried to ward her father away with her willpower alone, since there was little else that she could do in her position other than exercise some wishful thinking.

In that instant, two things happened in tandem: some kind of aura of red light entered her field of vision from above, then the same kind of aura surrounded her father and arrested his movement in midair. As unexpected as they were, they broke her train of thought and focus, which led to the pair of auras vanishing soon after their appearance. Between the unexpected stop and sudden release, her father landed on his rear instead of on his feet.

"What the hell was that?" Her father demanded, as he picked himself up from the ground and began to rub a hand over his offended backside.

"I wonder," Ranma replied in a thoughtful tone, as she glanced up at her horn, before she returned her gaze to her father and grinned at him mischievously. "Let's find out, shall we?"

Before her father could form a protest, he released an involuntary yelp when he found himself surrounded by a red aura once again and began to hover a few centimeters above the ground. However, it wasn't long before those scant few centimeters began to increase, as he was steadily lifted higher into the air. He struggled to get free, but he quickly realized that his efforts were ineffective. With that being the case...

"Ranma!" He exclaimed, affecting an affronted tone of voice. "Is this any way to treat your father? You should be ashamed of yourself!"

Between her bubbling excitement and the need to suppress it for the sake of her concentration, Ranma distractedly said, "Hey, it's _anything goes_, ain't it?"

Figuring that she wouldn't be able to concentrate well enough for much longer, considering all of the possibilities that were beginning to come to mind (regarding her newly-discovered ability), she decided to deal with her father quickly, so she could do more important — and potentially more enjoyable — things. With that in mind, she moved her father over the koi pond and released her hold over him.

As her father made a big splash in the koi pond, she was already trotting into the house with a bit of a skip in her step, paying no mind to those who happened to be watching her just then. Discovering that she had some kind of telekinesis, on top of being able to fly, was really going to make it hard for her to dislike her current predicament. It also didn't hurt that one of her more immediate problems had just been solved: because she could now take a bath... without assistance! Which was exactly what she was going to do.

It was highly unlikely that anyone would ever consider her to be a person who possessed any amount of horse sense worth noting, but her prioritization of many mundane necessities (such as good hygiene) would say otherwise.

* * *

Engawa: a hallway-like section of flooring (usually wood) separating the rooms within traditional Japanese homes from the outside, yet still allowing access to it when storm shutters and such aren't in use.


End file.
